A. 完全試合 B. 三振 C. 四球 D. 死球 E. 失策 F. 盗塁

G. 併殺 H. 本塁打

Theoman and Dragon both decided to be morbid and look for death omens this week, though they came up with different answers: the former focused on the actual, physical danger of the HBP, whereas Dragon sought out the soul-crushing shame of the strikeout. They both looked to C, which starts with the character for “four,” which is indeed unlucky because it can be pronounced the same as the character for “death.” But really, they should have been a bit less metaphorical and a bit more literal. Whereas C starts off with a symbol that sounds like “death,” D starts off with the symbol that actually is “death.” If they had realized this, then Dragon would have been correct; D is the Hit By Pitch. C is actually a lot easier than it was made out to be: the second symbol means “ball.” “Four balls” equals a walk. C and D have the same pronunciation, which is interesting, because a walk and a HBP have the same result. However, like most baseball terms, they also have equivalents based on English, and there they are differentiated: the walk is a foabooru (four ball) and the Hit By Pitch is a deddobooru (dead ball).

Well, we certainly know what part of baseball A Fan thinks is most important: offense (though this causes one to wonder why he roots for the team he does). It is true that seeing the ball sail out of the stadium can stir the heart–though actually, the real drama is just after the bat connects, before you realize whether or not it’s going, going, gone. But what could be more exciting than a perfect game, which has happened less than 20 times in the past 100 years? This is A.

Shirley, not distracted by the fact that the first character meant four/death, correctly picked up on the fact that C is the walk. However, while she told a good story, none of her other answers was right. H is not the strikeout but the home run; the middle character it shares with D means “base,” thus yielding “home base hit.” F, then, is the stolen base. The actual strikeout can be found at B, with characters meaning “three” and “swing.” The two characters she chose to ignore are E, the error, and G, the double play.

But that’s enough of baseball for now. It’s time for another homophone challenge. This week’s choices are all pronounced houkou and they mean: explusion from school, fragrance, gun muzzle, tailor or seamstress, roar or howl, and wandering. Good luck!

Possibly not in my best interest to point this out, but Theoman was the one who said C was Hit By Pitch, so he’s the one who would have been correct. Does KYPC have integrity points?

I’m going to say F is wandering, because there are these little lines running through it that sort of make it look like it’s raining and maybe some guy is wandering through the rain. I was hoping one of them would be wandering because it had the character at the top of the website in it, but none of them do. Have you ever explained what that character is?